12.31.2011

More Christmas Fun!

So, Christmas morning came early for this family. Normally, Jenna sleeps so late that I have time to get up, get my teeth and hair brushed and make myself look presentable. But this year, it was not so. At 6:10 she showed up at my bedside. I made her wait until 6:30, but even that was a struggle.

I finally drug myself out of bed and downstairs. Jenna was so excited to give Steve and I our gifts. We had each let her spend about $10-20 to buy the other items, mostly from the dollar bin at Target. This is the first year that Jenna was really aware and took the initiative in doing this. I was pretty surprised because usually she just picks up this or that. But this year, she really took her time in choosing our gifts. I could tell they were chosen carefully and thought through.

Those were all my gifts. Smarties candy, a pink lighter (to light our candles with!), a pack of recipe note cards, a pack of kleenex,a journal, a cat calendar, an eye mask (yes, I do use these at night when Steve has the TV on and it's too bright) and my favorite, pony tail holders. She got those because she's always taking mine and then they disappear. More ironically, I also got her some to go in her stocking!

Steve's gifts were likewise as appropriate, but I didn't get a photo of his. But he did get many other nice gifts...several things for his gun...

I got one of my favorite books from a series...Explosive Eighteen. And several sweaters that Steve picked out himself, which was impressive!

And of course, Jenna got lots of Justice clothes and that made her super happy.

So let me tell you about this picture above...you can't really tell unless you know what you are looking at, but Jenna is holding some Chinese money (Yuan). My friend Jennifer traveled to China in October to pick up her daughter. She had money left over and sent it to me along with some cleft bottles (which are used for cleft kiddos). I knew Jenna would think the money was cool so I decided to save it for Christmas. I just stuck it in her stocking and boy was it a hit. It was 400 yuan which is about $63. But to Jenna, it is a lot and she was totally excited. And of course, there was some Beibs to be had...

After everything was opened, we went to the 11:00 service at church. But just look at the chaos I left behind!

Can you spot our cat Mittens? He's there...he loves Christmas too...the wrapping paper and the bows..he just loves them. Even he was tuckered out after all the excitement!

Hope you all had just as merry a Christmas as we did! More to come...stay tuned!